MLBB Addicts To Face Boot Camp? West Java Thinks So

In a move that sounds like it came from a boomer who got steamrolled in ranked, West Java Governor Dedi Mulyadi has decided that Mobile Legends: Bang Bang (MLBB) players—yes, MLBB—are now part of society’s rogue gallery, alongside street brawlers and underage drunks.

Speaking at the DPR building in Senayan on 29 April 2025, Dedi laid out his master plan to throw “problematic” teenagers into literal military barracks for six months. The list of offences? Getting into fights, drinking, threatening your parents, causing chaos at school… and playing Mobile Legends all night.

Yes. You read that correctly. Playing a mobile MOBA late into the night and sleeping through the day now qualifies you for military re-education.

“Brawlers, drunkards, Mobile Legends players. Those who wake up late at night.”

Apparently, the plan is to yank these students out of school entirely, plop them into one of 30 to 40 barracks being prepped by the TNI (Indonesia’s armed forces), and let military instructors “correct their character and behaviour.” For six months. No school. Just barracks, discipline, and presumably no WiFi.

The TNI will even come knocking at your door to pick up your gamer child like they’re delivering a Grab order, but in reverse.

Now, to be fair, some of the kids targeted for this programme also threaten their parents and fake going to school, which is undeniably bad. But the part that makes you pause is that gaming, specifically MLBB, is lumped in like it’s an actual crime.

Let’s not pretend gaming addiction doesn’t exist—yes, staying up until 5:00 AM chasing mythical ELO is unhealthy. But suggesting that it deserves the same punishment as assault or domestic threats is… a bit much. It’s like saying, “He broke someone’s nose in a street fight, and this one… picked Layla and fed all game.” Same energy.

Dedi seems to think this is a practical solution to delinquency. He added:

“We’ve all been there, haven’t we?”

Speak for yourself, Dedi—I played Call of Duty: Black Ops II, I did not go around actually shooting people. If anything, it kept me away from delinquency.

The plan will be rolled out in “high-risk” areas first before it’s expanded to all 27 regencies and cities in West Java. The funding comes from a tag-team effort between the provincial government and local authorities, presumably using money that might’ve gone to, I don’t know, education?

And I feel that this wouldn’t fly in most other countries. If a Western government even suggested sending kids to military barracks for gaming too much, there’d be riots. Or at the very least, 12-hour Twitch streams protesting it.

But in West Java, it’s real. So if you know someone who’s Diamond rank and hasn’t seen the sun in weeks… maybe tell them to touch grass. Before the TNI touches down.